Folding Space

Summarising Information

The term "Folding Space", is used in the Dune Universe to describe a scientific phenomena practised greatly by the Spacing Guild, wherein a Holtzman Generator is used

A visualisation of the Space Folding process.

to fold space on a quantum level, thus allowing a distance that would have otherwise have been non-traversable in the span of a human life to be traversed instantaneously. The process also required that a Guild Navigator, who possessed a degree of prescience, be on board to navigator through the foldspace. The Navigators vast intelligence and prescience allowed it to overcome the difficulties involved in transit, such as the outrageously complex mathematical procedures to be carried out, which would only be plausibly calculable by a thinking machine, which was, of course, outlawed after the Butlerian Jihad.

A Guild Navigator, the mutated form of a human being, responsible for navigating through folded space.

History

The concept of Folding Space was first devised by Norma Cenva, who came up with the idea in 177 B.G. during the Butlerian Jihad. Having worked on and with Tio Holtzman's field research records and equations she was able to build the first space-folding vessel prototype by the year 174 B.G., and later she and Aurelius Venport established a shipyard on Kolhar, which would, over the coming years, begin construction on what would later become the Guild Heighliners used by the Spacing Guild. Prior to its use by the Spacing Guild, the technique of Folding Space was placed at the disposal of the

"To Fold Space"- Remix of the Dune Soundtrack, featuring music from Last of the Mohicans.

Butlerian Jihad, and used to devastating effect against the Thinking Machines. At the time however, there were numerous complications in the transit of foldspace, andonly nine in every ten heighliners survived transit. Norma Cenva sought to overcome this difficulty by using melange to increase prescience, calculability and physic powers and thereby Navigate foldspace safely. She became the first Navigator, and her son, Adrien Venport, later founded FoldSpace Shipping in 88 B.G., a company that would later become the Spacing Guild and monopolise interstellar travel.Many thousands of years later, after the rule of Leto Atreides II, when spice was in short supply, the Ixians manufactured a machine that possessed the same calculative capabilities as the Navigator, thus rendering them obsolete.

Out of-Universe Information

The concept of Folding Space is first brought into visual dimensions during a scene in David Lynch's Dune film. However, the usage of a Holtzman Generator is not specified, rather it is the Navigator that both folds and navigates the space. How it does this is also not specified, but it seen to shoot beams of light from its mouth, which begin the space folding process by generating images of the planets between which it will travel, and then creating a sort of warp between them. The same sort of scenario is seen in the Dune miniseries, however, the Navigator is not seen to be shooting light beams.